


Diagnosis: Lovesick

by AstridMyrna



Series: How To Find Your Soul Mate [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-02 11:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14543709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridMyrna/pseuds/AstridMyrna
Summary: Cassian's out sick, so Jyn brings him his homework to the apartment. However, Cassian's a lot sicker than Jyn thought he was, and with his grandma out of town for the weekend, Jyn volunteers to stay the night.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TinCanTelephone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/gifts).



> This is a gift for cats-and-metersticks! The prompt was "hurt/comfort" but I know what she likes.
> 
> Set in the same universe as the High School AU.

 

It wasn’t until she reached the second flight of stairs when Jyn realized that she had been dating Cassian for a little over two months and had _never_ been inside his apartment before. She had driven by it only once when Papa dropped Cassian off back when he finished his second swimming lesson with her. Of course, he had never been in her house either. It wasn’t like their relationship was secret, but they didn’t announce it 24/7 by making out in the hallway or grabbing each other’s butt randomly.

Why did her train of thought always end in butts lately?

Jyn reached the third flight of stairs and slowly made her way down the hall to find apartment 305. When she reached the red door with flecks of white paint near the peephole, she checked her backpack to make sure that yes, Cassian’s homework was in there. Bringing weekend English homework to a sick boyfriend was the perfect excuse to visit his home, maybe even get to know his grandmother a bit better. After inhaling a calming breath, Jyn knocked three times.

Nothing.

She knocked again before pressing her ear against the door and _maybe_ hearing some movement inside.

“Hello? This is Jyn, and I have something for Cassian.”

Was that a cat crying inside? Cassian never said anything about owning a cat. The sound of the door unlocking made her jump and hold herself up straight with a smile on her face.

Cassian opened the door, and he looked like death. He held a pale blue blanket tightly over his hunched shoulders with one hand while he clung to the door knob with the other. The bright pink around his watery eyes and running nose made the rest of him look like a dull sort of pale. She knew he was sick, but not one step away from the grave sick.

“Holy shit,” she said.

He drew up a half-smile. “You have my homework?”

“Yeah, it’s right here,” she said as she handed it to him. “Where’s your grandma?”

“Texas.”

“Texas?”

“Yeah, for the weekend. Visiting my great aunt for her birthday. I would’ve invited you over, but then…” He turned away from her to cough behind the door. “Sorry.”

She shook her head and leaned towards the threshold.

“Do you need anything, or do you want me to stay?”

“I can…,” he stopped to hack his lungs out again. “I can take care of myself. Thank you, though.”

“Well, okay. Text me if you need anything.”

Jyn slowly walked back to the staircase, racking her brain of anything else she could do to help him. It honestly hurt seeing him so sick, and to top it off with his grandma being away too. What happened if he ran out of medicine? Just before he had closed the door, he looked like he might collapse. If she had to guess, he probably had the flu, and she remembered how hard it was to even be able to crawl to the bathroom and not pass out from dizziness.

Not knowing what else to do, Jyn pulled out her phone to text him that, seriously, she’ll do whatever she can to help him, but saw that he beat her to the punch:

_Cassian_

4:30 pm

_Jyn wait_

_I went back to bed and left the door unlocked_

_I’m sorry can you lock it plz_

4:31 pm

_OMW_

She jumped back up the stairs two at a time and rushed back to his apartment. The door opened up easily for her when she twisted the knob. She reached around and flicked the lock, but before she closed the door, she called out, “Ok, I locked it.”

No answer. Probably dead asleep already. She opened the door wider and stole a glimpse of the small apartment.

“Cassian? Anyone?”

 She stepped inside to take _just_ a peek of the living room that fed into the kitchen, a half wall separating the tile from the white carpet. The cozy living room was stuffed with an old green couch and a matching chair, their wood edgings chipped and scarred from age, a T.V. stacked on top of stand fit to bursting with DVDs, and a rectangular coffee table at the center of it all. Doilies draped over the backs and armrests of the furniture, a doily hung half over the T.V., and a wide square doily served as a table runner for the coffee table. What caught Jyn’s eye was the small alter tucked in the corner of the room. She closed the door quietly before she approached it. A hand-painted statue of the Virgin Mary stood at the very center of the table, high above the short candles, surrounded by a small vase of white flowers, rosaries, beaded crosses, and a framed black and white photograph of an elderly man on her right and a color photo of a younger couple on her left. His grandfather, Jyn assumed, and his parents.

Jyn shoved her hands in her pockets to squash the urge to touch anything on the alter. It was bad enough she was breaking and entering, and she didn’t need to make it worse by disturbing something so obviously sacred.

Jyn nearly jumped out of her skin when Cassian groaned from the back of the apartment.

“Cassian? Are you ok?” she asked as she followed his voice down the hall.

“Jyn? Jyn,’sthat you?”

She went into his room, the only room with the door wide open, and saw Cassian trying to grab a blanket he had managed to kick off but his bed was up too high for him to reach it. Jyn picked it up and tucked it over him and the three blankets he shivered under while trying not to knock over the small trash can overflowing with tissues.

“Yeah. I said that I locked the door, but I didn’t hear you answer so I got worried. Cassian?”

 “Hm?” he grunted.

“When is your grandma coming back?”

“Sunday night,” he croaked.

Jyn surveyed his spare room, and felt a little jealous that even on his death bed his room was cleaner than hers, save for the few used tissues that fell out of the trash can and the pile of empty tissue boxes on his night stand table. She looked back at him, saw how weak and exhausted he was from that small walk to the front door and back.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay over?” she murmured.

“I don’t want you to get sick.”

“I’ve got the flu shot, so I’m good. I’ll just tell my dad that I’m staying over at Leia’s and she’ll cover for me so I can stay the night.”

He unglued his eyes and stared at her, and she could almost see the internal war going in his head until he pulled up a half-grin.

“I look that bad, huh?”

“You look like shit.”

He didn’t respond to that, his eyes drifting shut again. Jyn touched his burning forehead, and he spilled out crackling whimpers. Maybe she could get him a cold compress in the meantime, help him sleep easier.

“Stay, please?” he whimpered when she removed her hand.

“Yeah,” she whispered, eyeing the thermometer on his nightstand. “Have you taken your temperature?”

“I can’t remember.”

While he took his temperature, she found the washcloths and chilled one under cold water from the bathroom tap. She returned to his room with the cold compress and at tall glass of water. Even though he looked like he had been sweating, his forehead felt a little dryer than she expected. He let the thermometer fall out of his mouth, but picked it up with trembling fingers to put back on the table.

“What’s the verdict?” she asked, then read the digital number, “Oh my god--102.4.”

Cassian said nothing, since he fell asleep again. He stirred with a relieved groan when Jyn pressed the washcloth on his forehead.

“Your fever is way high. Too high. Maybe we should take you to the hospital.”

“No,” he grunted, then winced when he swallowed. He pawed at knob on his table drawer. “I have medicine.”

Jyn opened the drawer expecting to have to dig through a mound of crap like she did with her own drawers, but there was only a comb, a pair of nail clippers, a couple of pens, and a bottle of ibuprofen. Needing to have something to eat with the medicine or risk throwing up everything, Jyn made him some toast and sat on the edge of his bed making notes of what he needed between bites and sips of water: cough drops, throat drops, soup (there was a Chinese place nearby that made really good egg drop soup that Cassian was willing to try), and probably some more tissues. There was money in a coffee can on top of the fridge she could take, but to leave the receipt on his table so he could explain to his grandma later. After refreshing his compress, she left him to sleep and called Leia to pick her up.

Fifteen minutes later, Jyn and Leia were on their way to Jyn’s place in Leia’s silver Prius.

“Yeah, I’m gonna stay the night at Leia’s.  I’m heading home now to get my stuff for practice. I won’t be late, I promise. Okay, Papa. See you tomorrow night,” Jyn said crisply before hanging up. “Thanks again, Leia.”

“Well, it’s lucky that my parents are out of town this weekend, so your alibi is airtight.”

Jyn let out a sigh of relief that twisted in to a groan. “Just say it.”

Leia grinned. “Say what?”

“You know what.”

“That this wasn’t how you imagined spending the night at Cassian’s?”

Jyn groaned again as Leia laughed all the rest of the way to Jyn’s house. 

* * *

When Jyn returned to the apartment, she heard Cassian speaking low and soft. After shrugging off her backpack, setting her small suitcase down, and taking off her shoes, she carried her shopping bags to his room. She hung back when Cassian laid on his side, his eyes closed as he spoke into the phone. Her nose twitched from the sharp smell of Vicks Vapor rub.

“Sí, estoy tomando agua,” he his breathing hitched and he hacked out a cough until he sat up to sip some more water. Cassian smiled at her as she sat down, then frowned when he continued, “Abuela…n-no, Abuela, no soy a levantarme de la cama.”

She texted Leia on her phone while she waited, enjoying listening to him speak in Spanish. She didn’t hear him speak it often, but when he did she liked how playful he sounded as he stretched out his vowels and rolled his r’s and spoke at nearly a mile a minute. In English he spoke much more carefully and seriously, even when he was messing around with her. The only language she knew was level 3 French, and she sounded like a toddler during oral exercises.

“Adiós, Abuela,” Cassian said sweetly before hanging up the phone. “Thank God you came back, Jyn.”

She grinned. “Was that your grandma?”

“Yeah. She was checking up on me.”

“These were the cough drops you wanted, yeah?” she said as she handed the bright yellow bag to him.

“Yes, thank you. Sorry, I know the rub smells awful.”

She shrugged it off. “How about you take your temperature again?”

He stuck the thermometer back in his mouth and struggled to open the bag until Jyn tore the perforated plastic edge off. He slowly unwrapped one of the menthol candies until the thermometer beeped with a new temperature of 101.9.

“That’s good, at least. Hopefully it keeps going down. Would you like some soup now, or some water?”

“Water, please.”

Before she’d forget, she put the receipt on his table and stashed the change back into the coffee can when she went to refill is glass. When she returned, he was already breathing deeper as he sucked on the cough drop.

“So what did you tell your grandma?” she asked him, sitting by his knees on the edge of his bed.

“I said that I would call Kay or Bodhi if I needed anything. You?”

"I told my dad I was sleeping over at Leia’s, and her parents are out of town.”

“That was lucky.”

An awkward silence settled over them as the gravity of Jyn staying over at Cassian’s apartment finally made its impact. Jyn teased the fringed edge of one of his blankets drawn over him, a dark blue wool blanket with bands of black and white breaking the color like crests on a wave. Cassian’s hand peeked out from under the covers and grasped her hand.

“Thank you for helping me,” he said, his dark eyes shining in the dim light.

She leaned over and kissed his hot, greasy forehead, tasting the sweat in his stringy bangs. Something unexpectedly light fluttered in her ribcage.

“Hope you get better soon,” she said as she sat up. “I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”

He squeezed her hand once more, letting it drag as she pulled herself away from his bedside. He fell back asleep with half a grin. Jyn left a crack open in the door as she closed it in case he yelled out for something, then scrubbed her hands and arms in the bathroom before going to the kitchen to pound down some orange chicken and rice. She moved the stack sales ads off the small kitchen table pushed up against the wall before sitting down to eat, the tangy sweet of the orange chicken already masking the new scents of the cozy apartment. Cassian didn’t make a peep while she ate and watched videos on her phone to crowd out the relative silence. Someone upstairs was vacuuming and a bus chugged down the street.

Eventually Jyn moved to doing on her homework, which was just a final draft for an essay on _Jane Eyre_ they had been working for the last few weeks. After an hour of struggling with it she moved on to math and science, completing just as the clock hanging next to the kitchen cabinet struck ten. Christ, how did it get so late so fast without her realizing? Jyn shoved her stuff back in her backpack before getting her pajamas and toothbrush out of her suitcase and checking on the still sleeping Cassian before going into the bathroom to change.

One wouldn’t expect to get flustered in a locked bathroom, but Jyn couldn’t shake the feeling as she shucked off her day clothes and threw on her night ones as quickly as possible, like he was going to burst in the room before she finished buttoning her gray night shirt. She kept the door locked as she brushed her teeth, but when she finished she mechanically opened medicine cabinet and saw the razor, the stout green and black can of shaving cream, the chunky gray roll on--and shut the door, feeling guilty about trespassing. Sure, she’d seen the similar sort of hygiene products in her father’s medicine cabinet, but it was weird seeing it Cassian’s. It reminded her all over again that she was staying by herself at his home, and if he wasn’t sick…

She spat out her toothpaste and rinsed her mouth out. They had only dated for a couple of months, and both silently agreed to take these slow, to not rush into being intimate. Jyn took down her ponytail and brushed her hair out, her eyes roving over the small bathroom. She was making a big deal out of nothing! He shared the bathroom with his grandmother, for Christ’s sake, even though she felt like she was trapped in this tile room with his overwhelming scent of musk and grass and--

And she needed to get out.

Jyn stumbled out, Cassian’s door still closed thank God, and headed back into the living room. Still she felt cloistered by his scent, so she cracked open the window and wafted the fresh air in until her thrumming heart calmed down. When she sank down on the couch, she heard a door down the hall squeaked open, a couple of thudding footsteps, and another door opened and closed. The walls were thinner than she realized when she could hear Cassian pee just a few feet away from her. He flushed and, instead of going back to bed, shuffled down the hall in slow, groaning steps.

Cassian emerged still flush in the face and wearing a thin sheen of sick sweat on his cheeks. He cinched the blue wool blanket hanging over his shoulders with one hand while the other leaned against the wall and skated over to the back of the chair for balance.

“Hey,” he croaked.

“Hey.”

He plopped next to her on couch, his head lolling from exhaustion. Jyn scooted closer to him

“I brought soup back if you want it. Or do you want tea?”

“I want to die.”

“You can’t die on me yet. You still have to take me to prom.”

He smiled and snorted a laugh. “Soup, then. Please.”

After he directed her to the mugs, Jyn heated up the egg drop soup in one and poked him awake before giving it to him. She sat right next to him, keeping an eye on his grip.

“This is actually pretty good.”

“Yeah, and it’s good if you have a sore throat.”

He leaned into her. “It’s freezing in here. Why is the window open?”

Now it was her turn to flush.

“Because it’s stuffy and you’re sick. I can close it.”

“No, leave it open. I don’t want you to get sick. It sucks and everything hurts.” He sipped more of the soup, and grumbled, “Everything fucking hurts.”

His hand started to shake, so she held the bottom of the mug until he let go. At least he drank most of his soup. If he kept it down and slept some more, he’d probably feel better in the morning.

“Last time I got really sick, I couldn’t even walk. I had to crawl to the bathroom,” Jyn said as she rubbed his back. “My mom would get me egg drop soup and we’d watch movies when I was awake. Do you want to watch a movie?”

They ended up watching _Warm Bodies_ , probably because Cassian related with the walking dead at that point, but also because it was a funny movie. Jyn turned off the lights, closed the window, and sat right next to him. He sagged against her shoulder, then she nudged him into resting his head in her lap. She sat straight up, combing his hair with her fingers until her shoulders slumped against the couch.

“This is better,” he mumbled. “Do you think in fifty years we’ll be like this?”

“That’d be nice,” she answered, feeling the light flutter in her chest again.

Cassian’s eyes flitted to the alter before he nuzzled against her knees. “It would.”

Exhaustion does funny things to a person.

Jyn woke up on the couch, the red and white menu screen playing quietly in the background. Cassian’s head rested on her abdomen, and his body slept between her legs. She breathed slowly, his head rising a little with every breath, but he didn’t seem to notice that she was awake. He just continued to snooze on, one hand curled around her waist. It was so adorable she couldn’t help but kiss him on the top of his head. She could smell the vapor rub, the cough drop, the shaving cream, the deodorant, and beneath all of that, his scent that belonged to no one else.

She kissed his head until she drifted off again, waking only when Cassian whispered her name while he played with the ends of her hair. Feeling his forehead, his fever was still there but not as hellish as the night before.

Jyn, however, felt a little scratchiness in her throat.


	2. Chapter 2

_One Week Later_

The one thing Cassian feared would happen happened: Jyn caught his flu. Even though she had received the flu shot, apparently the strain they both contracted was not one of the strains in the vaccine. Cassian volunteered to bring her homework, but was informed that Jyn’s homework was being sent directly to Principal Erso. He wanted to give her _something_ to show that he wanted her to feel better and to apologize for getting her sick, but he was a) broke and b) couldn’t think of anything to give her that would mean as much as her staying over when Abuela was out of town. Flowers would make her sneeze more, teddy bears were too expensive, and she had Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime so it didn’t make sense to get her a (cheap) DVD.

Cassian lowered his head on the table, too heavy with thinking of all the ways he couldn’t comfort Jyn while she was sick, when Abuela patted him on the back.

“What’s wrong now, Cassian?” she said, pulling up a chair next to him.

He lifted his head up and rested his chin on his folded arms, then explained his predicament (save for Jyn sleeping over at the apartment. She didn’t need to know that part). She nodded slowly and hummed in understanding.

“I can make something and you can bring it over.”

He sat up in his chair and slammed his fist on the table. “That’s great! But ah…maybe I should make it?”

She lifted a graying eyebrow. “You, mijo? But you don’t know how to cook.”

“You could teach me.”

Abuela rubbed her chin with her thumb. “Well, maybe you are old enough.”

“Mamá told me she was eight when you taught her how to cook. And I don’t want to do anything fancy. Maybe sopa de estrellitas?”

Abuela’s eyes glossed over for a moment, but she smiled and patted his shoulder. “All right, but you need to get the ingredients for it.”

One of the precious few memories Cassian had of Mexico was eating sopa de estrellitas that Mamá made when he was sick or when it was cold out or when she was tired of “big” cooking. Usually Mamá used canned tomatoes, but Abuela told him to get three ripe, fresh ones at the market. Luckily, Cassian arrived just as new produce was being unloaded, and the produce stocker was nice enough to not only pick out good tomatoes but to teach him how to pick them for himself. The onions and garlic were so fresh that they reeked through their peels and stunk up his grocery bag as he went to grab a package of the six-pointed pasta stars.

On his way home, he texted Jyn:

11:34 am

_Hey is it ok if I stop by in few hours?_

_I wanted to give you something_

_as a get well present_

 

11:54 am

_sure_

11:55 am

_I’m really sorry I got you sick_

 

12:01 pm

_its ok_

_the cuddles wer worth it_

He smiled as he replayed the memory of sleeping on her lap on the couch. He woke up from her stomach growling in his ear, but he liked the feel of his legs around hers and her belly was soft. Before he slipped back to sleep, he anchored himself to her and listened for the faint echo of her heartbeat. 

When he returned home, Abuela clucked with approval over the vegetables before starting to worry over him over how to chop them. The tomatoes were easy, as they only needed to be split in half before being pulverized in a blender with some chicken broth and a garlic clove. The onion, however, had to be diced. He thought he was immune to the onion fumes when he sliced it in two, but as he slowly struggled to slice it into sections, the stingy smell built up in his eyes and he had to look away and shoo Abuela away so he could (eventually) finish dicing it himself. He returned, nicked his thumb, and let Abuela finish cutting the onion up for him.

Cassian was then given the job to “just keep stirring” with his good hand while Abuela dumped the pasta in the oiled pot to toast. He kept stirring but had to look away for a moment when the onions were thrown in next, but Abuela yelled at him to look so he knew when they were translucent so she could pour the tomato purée next. All they had to do was salt it, put a lid on it, and let it simmer until the pasta was soft.

“You did good,” Abuela cooed when they served themselves small bowlfuls. “Could use a bit more salt, but you kids don’t like salt as much as I do.”

“I’m pretty sure I can taste my tears. Aie, that onion hurt.”

“Once you practice with that knife a bit more, you’ll dice it up so fast you won’t have time to cry.”

Cassian scraped up the last of his bowl. “Thanks for teaching me how to make it. Can I learn how to cook other things from you too?”

“So you can impress your girlfriend?” Abuela cackled at Cassian’s reddening face. “Ah, but yes, I’ll teach you if you want to learn.”

“Thanks Abuela,” he chuckled, kissed her cheek, and packaged up the soup so it’d still be warm by the time he reached Jyn’s house by bus, but then Abuela surprised him by saying he could take the car.  Cassian gave her another hug and kiss on the cheek, surprised by her sudden generosity. It wasn’t until he was halfway to Jyn’s house that he realized that she probably didn’t want to risk getting sick.

* * *

“Well thank you for bringing soup over, Mr. Andor. That was generous of you,” Principal Erso said, holding the bag with the soup inside.

Cassian smiled back, or at least he hoped he smiled back, but it was hard to tell when he was already feeling overwhelming awkward about giving soup to both his principal and his girlfriend’s father. He wasn’t surprised that Principal Erso answered the door, but he had hoped to at least see Jyn’s reaction when she received the soup.

“Papa, is that Cass?” Jyn croaked from within.

Principal Erso turned and held up the bag. “Yes, he was just dropping off some soup he made for you.”

Jyn shuffled down the hall with a fluffy white coverlet pulled over her head. She stopped to look into the bag, then looked up at him with watery green eyes, her face flushed and her nose leaking.

“Aw Cass, you didn’t have to do that,” she cried and hooked her arms around him. “I don’t know what it is but I love it.”

Cassian slowly curled his arm around her and gave her a pat on the back. “It’s sopa de estrellitas, it’s like tomato soup with star noodles.”

Jyn squeezed him tighter, and for a minute he feared she was going to ask him to stay the night with her father staring at them with that disarming grin on his face, but she let go and thanked him for the soup. He wished her well and returned to his car. Just as he put the keys in the ignition, his phone buzzed.

_Jyn_

2:55 pm

_Hey so my dad is leaving at 6 for a dinner_

_Come over I demand cuddles_

Cassian stared at his phone, unsure of how to respond. She must be delirious if she was willing to text him this just after he left her house. He was pretty sure that he just earned some points with her dad from the soup, why risk that by sneaking over when he was away?

*

_Jyn_

6:10 pm

_Ok my dad just left_

_Where r u??_

6:11

_I parked 3 blocks away_

_I’ll be there in a few min_

6:13

_Ok just go thru the front door it’s unlocked_

_Can you lock it when you come in?_

6:15

_;)_

It took everything in him not to run to Jyn’s house, but to walk at a relaxed, “I totally live here don’t look at me like I’m suspicious” walk all the way to her house. He saw her through the living room window, and returned the wave when she waved her lump of a blanketed hand at him.

“I thought you’d be in bed,” Cassian told her when he entered.

She only groaned in response and led him up to her bedroom. Jyn had graciously left a clear path that cut through the piles of dirty clothes and study materials on the floor.

“Sorry it’s a mess,” she yawned. “Your soup was really good, though. I like it better than the egg drop soup.”

“Really? It was my first time making it,” Cassian said as he stepped over a math textbook. “How long do you want me to stay?”

“Is an hour okay?” she asked as she set the timer on her phone.

“Yeah.”

Jyn crawled underneath the covers and Cassian helped tuck her in before hopping on top of the fluffy white sheets next to her. Jyn crushed her arms around Cassian, which surprised him considering how weak he felt when he was down with the flu, and she snuggled into his chest, leaving a glistening slime trail on his black t-shirt. It took a little adjusting, but soon even Cassian was feeling sleepy as he combed his fingers through her sweaty hair.

“I missed you,” she whispered. “I wish you could stay.”

“Me too.”

“The next time my dad’s out of town…” she started before dozing off.

Cassian sighed, his eyes drifting shut as he rested his cheek on her burning forehead. They could think about next time when neither of them were suffering from high fevers and nausea. In the meantime, he was happy for the quiet hour he had with Jyn. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was writing a depressing fic when this came to mind.


End file.
